Critical Animalia – A Decade Between Disciplines

Critical Animalia: a decade between disciplines is a publication marking the ten year anniversary of Critical Animals Creative Research Symposium. It brings together essays, stories, poems, manifestoes and artworks by a decade’s worth of Critical Animals’ artists.

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As an annual conference held at This is Not Art in Newcastle, Australia, Critical Animals has over the past decade brought together students, researchers, writers, artists, academics and thinkers who critically engage with creative practices. Its participants have dispersed, reunited, re-dispersed and revisited conversations and ideas that began in the cosy enclaves of the festival. With a group of past and present critical animals in tow, Critical Animalia constructs a sparse diagram of Critical Animals’ complex history.

“As a polyvalent and dynamic assemblage of voices, Critical Animalia provides a glimpse into where the festival has been, where it is now and where it may go. Does Critical Animalia unfold in a harmonious sequence of works? Not really. As the publication intermingles the scholarly, the poetic, the anecdotal and the visual, it operates in-between stratified fields of expression. The discord continues as Critical Animalia includes work from individuals at diverse stages of their critical journey: the work of academics positioned alongside practicing artists, our festival organisers, publishers, copywriters, cultural commentators and emerging poets. Through the friction and gaps between its contributions, Critical Animalia reflects the origins of the Critical Animals Creative Research Symposium, as a creature that emerged from the interval between disciplines.”